Vienna’s reputation as a musical capital dates back to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when it became synonymous with the names of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. True, with the exception of Schubert, none of these composers—canonized since the nineteenth century as the creators of “Vienna classicism”—could claim the Habsburg capital as their birthplace. Haydn was born in a Lower Austrian village near the Hungarian border. Mozart was a native of Salzburg, which, despite its reputation today as quintessentially Austrian, was the capital of a semiautonomous archbishopric that did not become a Habsburg territory until 1814. And Beethoven was a native of Bonn. Still, there is no denying the importance Vienna would acquire as a musical capital in the course of the eighteenth century. Haydn may not have been a Wiener by birth, but he did spend most of his career either in the city or within a day’s drive, at the palace of his Esterhazy patrons. Vienna was more or less Mozart’s permanent home from 1781, when he was released from his service at the Salzburg court, to his death ten years later, and Beethoven resided in Vienna and its environs from 1792 until his death in 1827. In focusing on Haydn, the earliest representative of Viennese classicism, this essay addresses several broader issues related to the role of music in the culture of the Habsburg monarchy and to Haydn’s place in that culture. In particular, my article explores three key moments in Haydn’s career and development as a composer. These include, first, his boyhood years in the Lower Austrian town of Hainburg, where he acquired his earliest musical training in a modest parish school; second, the decade that followed his leaving the Choir School of St. Stephen’s in Vienna (1748 or 1749—Haydn scholars are still uncertain about the precise date), when he began his career as a composer; and finally, his participation in Viennese salon life during the 1770s and 1780s. These moments—cultural snapshots, as it were—highlight important stages